Cause & Effect
by cor aut mors
Summary: Sam and Dean are in a new town, waiting for their dad to finish up a hunt, but they make connections here that might last them a lifetime. Dean/OC, Sam/OC, pre-show.
1. Dean I

**This is a fic I'm writing with Harley, who I've written with before. She doesn't have an account yet, but I'm trying to convince her to get one. Anyway, this is a past!fic with a Dean/OC and Sam/OC romance set when Sam's still in high school. I love teenage Sam. He's just so cute I can't even. Anyway, every chapter should include at least one or more pov, and it changes a lot so bare with us. And please review. It helps so so so much.**

**This chapter was written by: Evie (cor aut mors)**

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**DEAN**

The building was cramped and painted a peeling pale blue, above a basement-turned-second apartment where the neighbors below played sloppy drums and threw parties way too often. The apartment was practically built into the hill along with the rest of the old buildings around the neighbourhood. Sammy noticed the smell first; damp, rotting, like cold wood and concrete floors. Then I pointed out the mold growing in the corner of the shower and that was all Sam could focus on for the rest of the day.

As far as accommodations went, it wasn't actually the worst place we'd stayed in. That was a dismal fact, and I knew it. I tried to put a good spin on it, but Sam wasn't fucking buying it. At least I could pretend things were alright; there was an auto shop nearby, where I'd already swung by and picked up a job application for a mechanic's position – I'd been comfortable with my head under the hood of a car since I was ten years old, and it was the only place I actually wanted to work at in this town. Dad had suggested I find a way to make money, 'cause the little he'd left with us wouldn't last long unless I really started pinching pennies.

Dad had had a somber look on his face while he helped Sammy and I get settled in our new place. The process wasn't too time-consuming. Both of us had one duffel for clothes and a separate one for weapons. Guns, knives, salt, lighter fluid, and assorted homemade gadgets. We stockpiled stuff like packrats, yet our wardrobes were constantly thinning.

Dad didn't stay long. He parked us in Norfolk, Massachusetts, then he was off to the next county to look into a hunt. He swore up and down that he could tackle it himself. Sam was about to graduate anyway, so he had to stay behind and go to school. Dad was adamant about that fact. Gotta get a diploma under his belt, apparently. I had to stick around to make sure the kid did as he was told.

The clean-up after dad left took longer than anything else. Sam attacked the kitchen counters, the sink, and the appliances with heavy-duty sprays and coarse creams. I found a vacuum cleaner in the cupboard in the hallway and started sucking up dust and grime and dead bugs from the carpets. Cleaning the bathroom took our combined efforts to get it close to spotless. Eventually the apartment became livable, though in the course of our spree we'd discovered a rat's nest in the garage and multiple damp spots where the rain had been dripping in.

"Pizza, tonight?" I quipped when we were finally done. I pulled off the yellow rubber gloves I'd worn to scrub the grimy toilet and chucked them in the bucket of suds and dirty water. "I'll order in."

When the delivery guy arrived, I stood there counting out dollars, maybe a little too carefully. Sam grabbed a few slices of pizza, put them on a paper plate, and dropped down on the couch to eat and read his book. I went to fetch the used linen from the trunk of the Impala. Most of the sheets and blankets had been pilfered from motels and washed at laundromats all over the country. They'd been stuffed in garbage bags and had wrinkles like canyons over the stained cloth, but they didn't smell too bad. Like feet and the hot interior of the Impala's trunk.

I made up the two single beds the apartment came with; Sam had flipped the mattresses over so they could sleep on the less rat-eaten sides. I straightened up and sighed once I'd tossed the last pillow onto the bed I claimed. Sam would want it, and I'd give it up without much of a fight. I just liked fucking with him. It was closer to the bookshelf anyway. Sam could stack his books and reach for them easily in the night, like he liked to do.

Pausing for a moment, I stood listening to the apartment. The sounds from the neighbors escalated to the thumping bass of bad music that practically shook the floors. I grimaced and thought about buying a stereo just so I could blast his Metallica cassette tape at full volume.

"Pizza's getting cold," Sam said, distracting me from his thoughts. He was standing in the doorway with a plate in hand. He saved the pizza crust for last, having chewed away the topping slathered past. He always did that. At least some things never changed.

I smiled but turned it into a smirk when I noticed that Sam's sweatshirt had a sauce stain on it. Probably an old one, considering the fact that their clothes hadn't been washed in a while.

"We're doing laundry tomorrow," I announced, kicking off my shoes into a corner of the room. I kept his socks on, though. Didn't like the idea of walking around the apartment in bare feet. "What's the point of having a washer and dryer if we don't use them, right?"

Sam shrugged and I followed him down the hall, back to the kitchen. The pizza box was sitting on the fold-out card table, one of the only pieces of furniture we actually owned. Dad had bought it at a garage sale for four bucks. I sat down on one of the wooden crates we'd found under a tarpaulin in the garage. Likely used for beer bottles, judging by the broken glass we found.

I took a slice of pizza and shoved the end into my mouth, chewing as I looked around. The whole place still stunk of antiseptic. The back door onto the tiny lawn was open, letting in mosquitoes as we tried to air out the smell. A coat of paint and maybe some new carpets and the apartment could be near decent. But we were only going to be there for a week, by dad's reckoning. All we needed was hot running water and not to have our toes bitten by rats in the night. Then we'd be gone. And good riddance. The town didn't have much to offer. A bar, two diners, and a small café. A high school, a few knots of residential neighborhoods, and the rest was farmland.

I polished off a second slice of pizza while Sam was making the couch more comfortable. He threw a motel blanket over it to cover the upholstery and shoved a few pillows under the thin couch cushions. I left him at it and wandered out the front door, escaping to the warmer air outside. The sun was nearly gone, the sky a dark blue. The street lights were steadily blinking on. Leaning against the gate to our temporary property, I swept my gaze up and down the curve of street I could see before the hill sloped down and ran away into the busier part of town. Though busy was a matter of opinion.

I frowned. Twenty-one years old and I should be like my neighbours. Young, limitless, just a little stupid. Sam was even worse. He was seventeen and already thought about insurance and filling out credit card applications, though of course that was merely for their scams. Still. If I didn't hate staying still I might be tempted to stick around in a town like Norfolk.


	2. Pippa I

**This chapter was written by: Evie**

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I narrowed my eyes at my textbook – _Principles of Quantitative Chemical Analysis _– as though by showing it I meant business, I could get through my AP Chem homework faster, and with as little pain as possible. Raking my fingers through my hair, I massaged my scalp in frustration, staring at the pages of complicated theories and diagrams. I was failing to absorb anything I was reading. I knew it was getting harder and harder to concentrate as the night went on, but I just didn't have the time to sleep. I'd lose hours of study time.

Groaning, I leaned back in my desk chair and stretched my stiff arms and legs, arching my spine and listening to the muffled sounds of my vertebrae popping. Mum and dad were asleep; dad had come in to say goodnight hours ago, ruffling my hair and smiling when he saw me hunched over my desk with my books and assignments spread out around me in some form of organized chaos.

The clock on my bedside table read 2:13AM.

I got up, grabbing the hairband around my wrist and deftly pulling my hair up into a ponytail. I tiptoed downstairs, going to the kitchen for a glass of water and maybe something to keep me going for the rest of the evening. I was just reaching for a bag of corn chips in the cupboard when a dark shape went loping past the kitchen window. I jumped, accidentally smacked my hand against the cupboard door, and swore under my breath as I rubbed my sore knuckles.

I leaned closer to the window, peering out into the back yard for any sign of movement. Something was out there. It was probably just the neighbour's dog. It squeezed under the fence between our properties every now and again, but I couldn't see anything. I went to the back door, which led from the kitchen and into the yard. When I turned on the porch light, I nearly screamed in fright as I finally saw what was out there.

Rena grinned and waved, though it was more of a two-fingered salute. My sister brandished a bottle of Jack Daniel's in one hand and her keys in the other, but I beat her to it when she tried to unlock the door. I pulled it open and gave her an irritated look.

"You scared the crap out of me," I said. "Why are you coming home so late?"

My sister, with all the irreverence I'd come to expect from her, shrugged and wandered through the door, setting her bottle of whiskey on the kitchen counter. "I was at a party," she announced. "And I stole their booze. Do you want some?"

I shook my head. "I really don't," I said, scrunching up my nose.

Rena's blonde hair hung in loose waves, and she wore jeans, a t-shirt that was honestly a little too tight, and a leather jacket. I hated how cool she looked.

"Why are you still up?" Rena asked, leaning towards me to inspect my face. She teetered slightly, but had pretty good balance, even if she was drunk.

"I'm studying," I mumbled, grabbing my snack and collecting my glass of water. "I need to get back to it. Don't wake up mum and dad, all right? They don't need to know what you're actually like."

"I'm a delight!" Rena said indignantly, snickering even as she defended herself. "And you should go to sleep, Pip."

"Ugh, don't call me that, please," I snapped. "I'm not six years old anymore."

Rena gave me an indulgent smile, but she didn't argue. No, I was seventeen, and had my sights set on Columbia. I'd live in Greenwich Village and be in the middle of a city I'd dreamed of since I was little. I'd leave Norfolk behind and not even look back. If dad knew my intentions, to leave the moment I had the freedom to do so, he'd want to lock me up. He wanted me to do well, but not so far away. He kept talking about Virginia State, like it was a school I aspired to in any way. It wasn't.

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Mum and dad had no clue that Rena had gone out last night. They thought she'd spent a late night working at the De Campo's garage. It was a mechanics shop, one of the last in Norfolk, and probably the oldest. The De Campo family was a big, traditional Italian family who'd been living in town for generations. Lizzie De Campo was one of the younger kids; she was in my grade, but we didn't talk much.

Dad told Rena she shouldn't work so hard, and mum made her a big breakfast. I didn't have the time to sit down with them and eat. I wolfed down a bowl of cereal and hurried out the door. Rena called after me in a singsong voice, "Have a good day, little sis!"

She always acted this way around our parents, like the good little angel they thought she was. It would've been better if she was as crass and rebellious around them as she was everywhere else, because I liked her more when she wasn't pretending. I loved my sister, but I was guilty of being the jealous little sister. When I was little I tried to copy everything she did; she didn't mind all the time, but by the time I found my own identity she was already the beloved, the favourite.

Sighing, I climbed into my car, a little plum-coloured '79 Malibu that had been passed down to me by my aunt. I had to jiggle the keys in the ignition to get the engine to start. Only a handful of kids drove to school here, but those that did usually drove the latest models with the shiniest paintjobs and came from well-off families.

My parents were fairly wealthy, for Norfolk, but they'd decided I needed to appreciate the simpler things in life, to give me a well-balanced view on things. So when I pulled my breadbox of a car into the parking lot at school, I felt my face flush as the other kids in their brand new convertibles snickered. One kid smacked the trunk of my car as I crawled past him, looking for a spot. I knew him, and his family. In a small town like this, you knew everyone you went to school with. None of them really liked me, but I'd be gone soon enough.

There was a new car in the parking lot, which took some of the attention of me. It was a big, grunty car that I hadn't seen before. When I got out and walked past the car, I let my curiosity get the better of me. There were two people sitting in the car, talking. One of them was laughing when the kid in the passenger's seat got out of the car, an uncomfortable look on his face.

I carried on and trudged into school, heading first for the computer lab, where I'd find my best friend, Ruth. Her fizzy brown hair created a halo around her head and she smiled when I went over to her, sitting down as she did something on the big, boxy computer in front of her.

"Did you finish your chem assignment?" Ruth asked as she shut the computer down and turned in her chair to look at me, pushing her glasses further up her nose as they began to slip.

"Yeah, in the end," I said. "I think there's a new kid today."

"So?" Ruth looked perplexed about my announcement, but I just smiled. She paid even less attention to the student body than I did. She was wickedly smart, especially when it came to sciences and technology, but she could be a little insular. I still don't know how we became friends.

"Never mind," I said, shaking my head. "Come on, class starts in five minutes."

"Coming," Ruth said and started to pack up her bag, slinging it over her shoulder. We left the computer lab and headed upstairs to our English class. We peeled off to our assigned seats. The teacher hadn't arrived, so I fished out my book and opened it up to my bookmarked page, settling in for a few minutes of reading.

It hadn't been long before someone loomed over my desk, and I glanced up in irritation to see the new guy, looking uncertainly at all the desks. "Is this seat taken?" he asked, pointing to the empty desk in front of me. It had been unoccupied for the entire school year.

"No," I answered, my attention drifting back to my book. The new kid sat down, trying to get comfortable. He had to push his chair away from his desk so his tall frame could sit without crushing his knees against the desk. I watched the back of his head surreptitiously, wondering at this awkward, gangly creature.


End file.
